Exploring the Estuary

Hullo! We went for a little walk to a new place today - the river estuary!

There's this big old oak tree here, but not much else in the way of trees...

It's pretty, isn't it?

There are some informational plaques here. Back in the day (early 1900s), settlers decided to throw up some berms to convert the estuary to farmland. That destroyed a lot of estuarine habitat for birds and other critters. But now... they are taking the berms down and trying to reestablish the estuary. Cool!

That looks like an area that might have been dug up recently to convert back to a tidal channel...

See... they brought in big machines...

They're hoping that plants, fish and little invertebrates will colonize the area and help turn it back into a true estuary...

If you stand and look in the water, you can see all sorts of little scurrying activity...

Well... maybe not on the photo... but it's there!

There's the city, waaayyyy over there... and one of the river channels flowing out to the ocean.

This is a cool area - not a long hike, but interesting nonetheless...

We can help protect this rare ecosystem by... packing in what we pack out... that means not leaving garbage and cans lying around. Some people didn't read this because there were a few beer cans lying around. We also shouldn't disturb the wildlife... and stay on designated trails...

The area in pink is the section of estuary that is a conservation area.... cool...

As we left, we stopped at a spot along the river which looked interesting... It's beary close to the road which means one could put a kayak in the water here!

And it might be an interesting swimming area to take Rose to this summer...

Plus, there are all sorts of cool areas for stuffies to explore!

That rock better be strong... we don't think we could have been miners...

We're more mountain climbers!!

It's exciting to go to new spots and see what's there!